Movie · 1956 · Drama, Western, Romance · 3h 21m · NR · English
Curator score: 8.0/10 (82.3K ratings)
Sometimes any man can be a giant . . .
Overview
Wealthy rancher Bick Benedict and dirt-poor cowboy Jett Rink both woo Leslie Lynnton, a beautiful young woman from Maryland who is new to Texas. She marries Benedict, but she is shocked by the racial bigotry of the White Texans against the local people of Mexican descent. Rink discovers oil on a small plot of land, and while he uses his vast, new wealth to buy all the land surrounding the Benedict ranch, the Benedict's disagreement over prejudice fuels conflict that runs across generations.
Ratings
Curator score: 8.0/10
IMDb: 7.6/10
Letterboxd: 3.89/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 86%
Metacritic: 84
TMDB: 7.6/10
Director
George Stevens
Production
Warner Bros. Pictures, George Stevens Jr. Productions
Cast
Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Carroll Baker, Jane Withers, Chill Wills, Mercedes McCambridge, Dennis Hopper, Sal Mineo, Rod Taylor, Judith Evelyn, Earl Holliman, Robert Nichols, Paul Fix, Alexander Scourby, Charles Watts, Elsa Cárdenas, Carolyn Craig, Monte Hale, Sheb Wooley
Curator Review
Verdict
A sprawling, old-school Hollywood epic that uses a ranch saga to examine class, race, gender, and the corrosive pull of money. It’s melodramatic and very long, but the scale, performances, and social bite still land.
Best for
Viewers who like classic studio epics with big performances
Fans of Westerns that evolve into family drama and social critique
People interested in mid-century American attitudes toward race and class
Anyone curious about James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, or Rock Hudson at peak star power
Skip if
You want a lean, fast-moving Western
You dislike melodrama or long runtimes
You prefer modern pacing and understated acting
You’re looking for a traditional action-heavy cowboy movie
Overview
Giant is one of the great American studio epics, a film that starts as a ranch romance and gradually reveals itself as a broad argument about power, prejudice, and the changing shape of Texas. George Stevens gives the material enormous physical scale, but the movie’s real force comes from how personal grievances become social history. The landscape is vast, yet the characters are constantly boxed in by money, status, and inherited ideas.
Worth noting
The film is also a showcase for star performance as spectacle. Elizabeth Taylor brings steel and moral clarity, Rock Hudson gives the story its grounded center, and James Dean turns Jett Rink into something volatile, pathetic, and strangely magnetic. The movie can feel overripe, but that excess is part of the appeal: it’s a grand, emotional machine that wants to be felt as much as understood.
Bottom line
What makes it endure is that it’s not just about the old West fading away. It’s about who gets to define progress, who benefits from it, and who is left behind or erased. For a 1956 Hollywood film, that’s remarkably ambitious, and still surprisingly sharp.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Patrick Willems (4★) · 848 likes
Drunk mumbling James Dean! Baby Dennis Hopper! The climactic scene is Rock Hudson fighting a racist guy in a diner! What a picture!
ryan (4★) · 765 likes
James Dean plays an unrecognizable middle-aged, grey-haired, alcoholic playboy... and it's glorious.
nora (3.5★) · 671 likes
as much as i love rock hudson, if i’d just married him then rolled up on a ranch where a sweaty james dean and his lithe body were slouching all up against pickup trucks, adjusting his cowboy hat, making bad tea and just being generally messy, i would leave rock so fast
Justin Bryant (5★) · 492 likes
"Money isn't everything, Jett. "
"Not when you've got it."
davidehrlich (4★) · 409 likes
who ever thought a movie called GIANT would be so long?
Stevens is my kind of filmmaker. Liz Taylor shrouded in darkness during her pivotal tiff with Rock Hudson, the long-take of Jamws Dean climbing his newly bequeathed wind turbine, the wide shot of James Dean's final screen moment, broken and alone...
less interested in this as A BIG AMERICAN EPIC than i am in its sweep and pull (if THERE WILL BE BLOOD doesn't negate the former reading, it… more